Sunday, January 1, 2012

Floor Replacement

Work on the floor of the operator's vestibule of Springfield Terminal Railway car 16 has commenced. The floor between the controller and the step has been removed and replaced with new wood. Over the years, the floor has worn paper-thin from the foot traffic through the car. The new tongue-and-groove flooring has been installed and will be painted once the warmer weather in the spring allows. This winter, we hope to assemble a complete set of heaters for the car and wire and install golden glow headlights on the car.

On the other track in the shop, Boston Elevated Railway car 5645 has been jacked and the motors removed. One armature was sent out to an electrical repair shop and repaired. Now that it was returned, a second will be sent out. Meanwhile, inside the car, the floor is being replaced where it has buckled.

Back in the Visitor Center, work is progressing quite quickly in disassembling Winterfest. The G Gauge table is almost completely disassembled. Soon, we will be able to move cars back into the Visitor Center.

About this Site

"Connecticut Company" is NOT an official blog of the Connecticut Trolley Museum. The articles posted within this site are the views of the contributors only and do not necessarily reflect the views of the organization.

This blog site is named after the original Connecticut Company or ConnCo, which ran trolleys throughout Connecticut from 1910 to 1948. ConnCo was a subsidy of the New Haven Railroad. By 1948, ConnCo converted all trolley operation to buses, and the era came to a close in Connecticut.

However, eight years prior, in 1940, the Connecticut Electric Railway Association was formed in an effort to preserve a streetcar from Hartford. In 1941, CERA saved its first car, ConnCo 65 from the scrapper. When trolley service ended in 1948, CERA saved 7 more ConnCo cars.

Today, the Connecticut Trolley Museum is the oldest incorporated museum dedicated to railway preservation in the country. Although not the largest, CTM's has a collection covering many of the major types of trolley cars including streetcars, interurbans, elevated cars, and work cars from the Northeast, Midwest, Deep South and Internationally as well.